How similar are French and Portuguese?

In spoken form, Portuguese and French are not mutually intelligible, because the pronunciations are so different. But in written form Portuguese and French are partially mutually intelligible because of their underlying shared Latin roots.

Can French understand Portuguese?

So, French speakers cannot understand Portuguese, and Portuguese speakers probably cannot understand French. Of course, it is still possible to learn Portuguese in order to understand it, and I don’t think it is the toughest language to learn for a French speaker.

Is Portuguese closer to French or Spanish?

Thanks. It’s closer to Spanish. It has way more cognates than French. Between these two, definitely Spanish but Galician is the closest language to Portuguese as they were the same language in the past, then they develops separately.

Is Portuguese a mix of French?

Portuguese is part of the Romance family

It is hard to say exactly how many there are, but the most spoken ones are Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, French and Romanian. … Just like Portuguese, each of those languages then developed as a mix of the native, pre-Roman tongues and the colonizing Latin.

Can Spanish understand French?

A Spanish person would be able to read and understand a lot of the written French, but having a conversation would be very difficult.

Can French understand German?

French & German grammer can be compared and learned to an extent. However the words: their spellings & pronunciations are altogether different. So the French cannot understand German, exception is when they geographically closer, for example: people who live in Strasbourg.

What language is Portuguese closest to?

Spanish
However, of all the Romance languages, Spanish is the closest to Portuguese. Both languages are descended from Vulgar Latin. They are sharing a common origin by Roman Empire as Rome brought Latin to the peninsula. This language group consists of Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan.

Is Portuguese or Spanish older?

The Portuguese language is older than Portugal itself, just like Spanish is older (much older) than Spain. btownmeggy said: Then the question must be raised, What is the history of language in Galicia? From the 8th century, Galicia was part of the kingdoms of Asturias and Leon.

Is Portuguese like Spanish and French?

Portuguese and Spanish are both Ibero-Romance languages which share the common “Vulgar Latin” ancestor along with French, Catalan, and Italian. Portuguese and Spanish share an 89% lexical similarity, meaning that there are equivalent forms of words in both languages.

What language is closest to French?

The languages that are most similar to French are Italian, Catalan, Spanish, Portuguese, and others like Romanian. These languages have one or more things in common with French, which mainly revolve around a high lexical count, in turn meaning shared vocabulary, and similar grammar.

Is Portuguese harder than Spanish?

For most native English speakers, Spanish is slightly easier to learn than Portuguese. This is primarily a matter of access. Since Spanish is spoken by over 400 million people worldwide (compared to just over 200 million for Portuguese), it’s easier to find Spanish resources and media for learning or practising.

Which is harder French or Portuguese?

Long answer: depends on the other languages you know. If you don’t know english, then French is definitely more useful. It is still spoken all over the world in hotel lobbies and finding a french guide or translator is generally easier than finding a portuguese one.

Is French spoken in Portugal?

The use of French in Portugal has declined over the years, with most of the population preferring English over the French language. French was introduced in Portugal during the 19th century and remained popular until the 1970s. Currently, French is mostly spoken by elderly segments of the population.

Which countries speak French in Europe?

In Europe, French is the official language in Belgium, France, Luxembourg, Monaco and Switzerland. Home speakers can be found in Italy.

Should I learn French or Portuguese first?

Long answer: depends on the other languages you know. If you don’t know english, then French is definitely more useful. It is still spoken all over the world in hotel lobbies and finding a french guide or translator is generally easier than finding a portuguese one.

What language is closest to English?

Frisian
The closest language to English is one called Frisian, which is a Germanic language spoken by a small population of about 480,000 people. There are three separate dialects of the language, and it’s only spoken at the southern fringes of the North Sea in the Netherlands and Germany.

Is Portuguese or Italian more useful?

As a Spanish speaker who learned both languages I tell you with no doubt that Portuguese is easier to learn. Only its phonology is harder to learn because of nasal vowels that don’t exist in Spanish. But the grammar and vocabulary are very similar, more similar than Italian.

Which is more useful French or Portuguese?

Long answer: depends on the other languages you know. If you don’t know english, then French is definitely more useful. It is still spoken all over the world in hotel lobbies and finding a french guide or translator is generally easier than finding a portuguese one.

Is Portuguese worth learning?

Originally Answered: Is Portuguese worth learning? Yes, absolutely. Answering as Brazilian, if you wanna know Brazil, a wide country where to speak Portuguese is enough so worth it. And if you consider other countries where Portuguese is spoken still worth it.